Construction begins on OMA’s Bryghusprojektet in Copenhagen, Denmark

Construction begins today on the OMA-designed Bryghusprojektet in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 27,000m² mixed-use project will accommodate a new headquarters for the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC). The building will act as the missing link between the city centre, the historic waterfront and the culturally rich Slotsholmen district of Copenhagen.

OMA Partner-in-charge Ellen van Loon explained: “Instead of stacking a mixed-use program in a traditional way, we positioned the DAC in the centre of the volume, surrounded by and embedded within its objects of study: housing, offices and parking. The urban routes reach into the heart of the building and create a broad range of interactions between the different program parts and the urban environment.”
Situated among landmarks in the history of Danish architecture, Bryghusprojektet shares with the indigenous modernism tenets of simplicity, monumentality and urbanity. The site is bound by a cluster of historic monuments, including the Christiansborg Palace and the Old Brewery, whilst sharing the riverside with many other bold, contemporary interventions.
To capitalize on the site’s potential, the building is an ‘urban motor’ to actively link the city and the waterfront. Providing a connection under the busy Christians Brygge, where entrances to the different program elements are strategically located, the site becomes both a destination and a connector at the hinge of the waterfront and the ‘entrance’ to the city.
Led by OMA Partners-in-charge Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon in collaboration with OMA Associate-in-charge Adrianne Fisher, the project is scheduled for completion in early 2017. OMA won the competition to design and build Bryghusprojektet for Realdania Byg in 2006.